Review article
https://doi.org/10.31299/hrri.58.si.8
Prosody in Sign Languages
Ronnie B. Wilbur
orcid.org/0000-0001-7081-9351
; Department of Linguistics, and Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Lyles-Porter Hall, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
Abstract
This chapter addresses the debate concerning the status of nonmanuals (head, face, body) as prosodic or not by exploring in detail how prosody is structured in speech and what might be parallels and differences in sign. Prosody is divided into two parts, rhythmic phrasing (timing, syllables, stress), and intonation. To maximize accessibility, in each part, an introduction to what is known for speech is presented, followed by what is known and/or claimed for sign languages. With the exception of the internal structure of syllables, sign languages are very similar to spoken languages in the rhythmic domain. In the intonational domain, the parallels are less strong, in part because analogies of nonmanual functions to spoken intonation tend to be based on older/simpler models of intonation. There needs to be much more detailed research on sign languages to catch up with the recent research on spoken intonation.
Keywords
prosody; rhythmic phrasing; intonation; discourse management; stress marking; sign languages
Hrčak ID:
284342
URI
Publication date:
12.10.2022.
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